Sports

Sports Briefs

• ALHS Badminton team competed in the championships against Lowell   

• Golfers Justin Dieu, Rocky Marania and Duke Janza competed at the San Francisco section individual golf championship.    

• Ethan Hoang represent Lincoln in the 50 freestyle at the state swim championships.     

• Swimmers Jeffrey Chan, Wesley Lin, Andrew Wong, Kevin Tran swam the 200 free relay at the state swim championships.

• Lincoln Dragon Boat had a great weekend competing at the 2018 CDBA Youth Race. This was their first time entering nine crews to race--four mixed, two girls, and three boys teams--five of which made it onto the podium with four gold medals and one bronze.

Achievements & Results CDBA Youth Race 2018:

• Gold Boat - 1st place A Division - 2:10.22

• Red Boat - 1st place B Division - 2:18.00

• Black Boat - 3rd place B Division - 2:23.24

• White Boat - 6th place C Division - 2:29.03

• Lady Mustangs - 1st place Girls Division - 2:26.25

• Praetorians - 1st place Boys Division - 2:05.58

• Lady Ponies - Girls Division finalist

• Centurions - Boys Division finalist

Lincoln Flag Football season was good despite losing championship

By: Zev Curiel-Friedman

 

Game winning touchdown at Washington High School

 

 

In 2018 the Lincoln Mustangs Flag Football team put together one of their best seasons to date, but it would come to a sad ending with a crushing loss to Galileo in the championship game. They ended the season with an amazing 8-2 record.

 

Vanessa Wu, currently a junior on the team, thought that the season was a success, saying, “We played as hard as we could and I think this was our best season hands down in the 3 years I’ve played.” Over the course of the season she played center, slot, wide receiver, kick returner, punt returner, kicker and punter. She scored 10+ touchdowns through a combination of receiving and return touchdowns this season. Out of all of her touchdowns Wu said her favorite was, “My punt return touchdown when I ran for 60 yards against balboa in the first play.” Despite the defeat this year, Wu is confident that next year won't garner the same result, exclaiming, “I’m bringing home the championship next year.” However, she will have to get it done without her teammate and partner in crime Emily Zehm, who she said she is dedicating her presumed championship next year to. In order to be ready for next year Wu has already started a 3 day workout regimen to improve herself physically and hopes to slowly work toward a 5 day workout system.

 

Emily Zehm, the starting QB for the Mustangs this year and team leader in touchdowns, said that playing with her close friend Vanessa made her season much better. With this being her senior year Zehm was disappointed with the loss but said, “I gave my all when it came to my and was always trying to better my teammates.” Continuing, Zhem said,“This is hands down my best season, which made the season even more fun for me. Being a big part of a team always made me happy when playing.”

 

Kim Xu a senior defensive player who was also upset at the loss tried to stay positive as well, exclaiming, “I feel like I could’ve done more because we didn’t get our championship, it sucked but I won't let it destroy me.”

 

Zehms favorite moment from the season was during the playoffs against lowell, when she threw a touchdown to an offensive linemen, Emily Bowman. “The whole team went wild because she missed every pass during practice but the one pass she finally caught was during playoffs. it was crazy im never gonna forget that, it was one of my favorite touchdowns.” Zehm will be attending Fresno State next year and plans to play rugby.

 

Although the season didn't end the way the team wanted it to, looking forward to next season the Lady Mustangs have high aspirations and goals, and hope to end it with a championship.  

 

The badminton team lost after an undefeated season

By: Alison Wu

The badminton season has ended with 2nd place for All-City Championship

 

After starting the season off with a new coach, Anthony Chu, the badminton team went on to have an undefeated year up until the last game with Lowell. Over the course of the season they beat Balboa, Burton, Wallenberg, Galileo, John O'Connell, SFI, and Marshall. One of the things the players attributed their success to is their new training schedule.

 

A sophomore on the team Franky Yang said, “We have a good coach that knows what we have to improve on and what we have to change. Also, we have had great team togetherness and effort throughout the year which also helped us remain undefeated for so long.”

 

Despite their very successful season the team still feels they have stuff to improve on.

 

Junior John Zhong who has been on the badminton team for three years said, “I think next year we could definitely try harder.”  

 

Another refinement the team could make is the facilities, says Junior Niko Huang.“The condition should be improve, because we always practice in North Gym which is too small and not enough court for everyone to practice at the same time.” Yang also wishes that there was better participation, continuing,“some people can’t attend practice because of the timing problem and we were too over-confident which lead us to lose our last game.”

 

Although the team lost the last game of the regular season to Lowell, they still breezed through the playoffs and seemingly won the championship. However before they could be announced as champions, the head coach of Washington called the league office to dispute the victory, claiming the team had cheated. Because the team had inadvertently switched their doubles 1 and 2 teams in the matchups, the league warranted the coaches request, and disqualified the Mustangs, giving them second and Lowell the championship.

 

“Because we accidently put our double 1 to double 2 and double 2 to double 1 they said our school scammed the tournament, even though it had no benefit to us. Since the Washington coach thought we could have won the tournament more easily by doing this, she reported us. We didn’t lose any of our games against Washington, so if they didn’t report us then we would have gotten the gold metal.” said Zhong.

 

“I feel disappointed with the result, all of my teammates and our coaches were very disappointed as well. Our entire years worth of effort was all in vain.” said Fung

 

Zhong added that, “I fell the All-City tournament wasn’t professional. They used plastic birds for and there were no judges or scorekeepers. We had to keep track of the scores by ourselves.”

 

Although this season ended in defeat, hopefully next year the Mustangs can return next year and avenge their loss.

Lincoln track team aspires to hurdle to 1st place at All-City

By: Zev Curiel-Friedman

 

Le'Moni Till practices passing the baton with her relay team

As All-City looms closer and closer, the track team is headed to the finish line with a full head of steam. In efforts to prepare for the biggest meet of the year, the squad has been vigorously practicing each and every day.

 

However, one of Lincoln's top track stars Jackson Walker had been hampered by a injury, causing him to not be have been able to run the last few meets.

 

Sophomore Luis Contreras will be running the 100m at All-City along with the 4x1 and 200m. Heading into All-City Contreras says that he is more nervous than excited. However he is still confident about all his events due to the amount of work he has put forward this year, stating, “I’ve been practicing 4 times a week to prepare and I think that it has helped me improve a lot throughout the year.” Over the course of the season Contreras’ PR’s are 11.4 seconds for the 100m, 23.8 seconds for the 200m, and 44 seconds for the 4x1, but hopes to improve on all of those numbers at All-City.
 

Managing the whole operation is the ever busy Kevin Dougherty. Dougherty has been the head of the team for 11 years and thinks that this one has the potential to be one of the best yet. “We only have 5 seniors this year, but all of our younger kids are doing great. Out of the 97 kids that we have in All-City 92 are underclassmen.”

 

One of those underclassmen is Junior Anson Kong, who despite the fact that it is his first year of track is participating in the high, long, and triple jump at the All-City Finals.

 

Kong says, “Coming in I wasn’t really sure how I would like it but over the course of competing and everything I think that I have gotten a lot better.” Continuing, Kong says, “I’ve put in a lot of work and when it comes down to it I hope that I can place in all of my events.”

 

Despite the obvious goal of many competitors being to get first in their events and as a whole win the competition, Dougherty has a different mindset, saying, “The focus should always be on how many kids are PRing at all city. I highlight all the kids that PR at All-City and that gives me data on if we are doing the right thing.”   

 

With all city looming right around the corner on May 26th hopefully these mustangs and the rest of the team can live up to their hopes and bring home gold at All-City.